"You see, we had gone pretty far in, but I believe the open country is about a mile this way." A mile?
Good heavens! Jessica and Anne were already stumbling from exhaustion, while Hippy was quite winded.

Another five minutes of this and at least three of the party would be food for wolves, unless something could be done.

So thought David, who, breathless and light headed, was now almost carrying Anne.
"Hurrah!" cried Grace, who had been running ahead of the others.

"Here's Jean's hut!" There, sure enough, right in front of them, was a little house built of logs and mud.
Had it been put in that particular spot years ago just to save their eight lives now?
Anne wondered vaguely as she blindly stumbled on.
As Grace lifted the wooden latch of the door, she looked over her shoulder.

Not three hundred yards away loped five gaunt, gray animals.
Their tongues hung limply from the sides of their mouths and their eyes glowered with a fierce hunger.
"Hurry!" she cried, in an agony of fear.